58 - Merseyside Conurbation : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

The Merseyside Conurbation National Character Area (NCA), centred on Liverpool and Birkenhead, extends northwards towards the Sefton Coast NCA and southwards towards the Wirral NCA. The area is also abutted by the Lancashire and Amounderness Plain NCA to the north-east, the Lancashire Coal Measures NCA to the east and the Mersey Valley NCA to the east and south-east. Although the Merseyside Conurbation shares a peninsula with the Wirral NCA, it is physically separated from the pastoral landscape of the Wirral NCA by a dramatic sandstone ridge which extends from Bidston Hill in the north through to Storeton in the south. The escarpment provides a strongly contrasting setting for the two NCAs.

The area’s significant wildlife habitats span the coast and estuary, interlinking with the surrounding NCAs and the marine environment. The Mersey Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar site crosses into the Mersey Valley NCA. The Mersey Narrows and North Wirral Foreshore SPA and Ramsar site and the Dee Estuary Special Area of Conservation (SAC) extend into the Wirral NCA; while the Ribble and Alt Estuaries SPA and Ramsar site and the Sefton Coast SAC are ecologically continuous with the Sefton Coast NCA.

The Merseyside Conurbation NCA is bisected by the River Mersey. The River Mersey starts in the Manchester Conurbation NCA at the confluence of the River Tame and the River Goyt, and flows west, passing through the Mersey Valley NCA where the river becomes tidal. It continues through the Merseyside Conurbation NCA, flowing out into Liverpool Bay and the Irish Sea in the north-west. The River Alt rises in Huyton in the Merseyside Conurbation NCA, draining into the Irish Sea at Hightown in the Sefton Coast NCA. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal also crosses the Merseyside Conurbation NCA, connecting the cities of Liverpool and Leeds. The coastline experiences complex sediment movement and high tidal ranges, with extensive sandy/muddy beaches along the coast between the Wirral Peninsula and Sefton.

There is a diverse range of views out of the Merseyside Conurbation NCA, including views of wind turbines from the coast, Blackpool to the north and north Wales to the south. The stacks of the oil refineries at Ellesmere Port in the Mersey Valley NCA are also visible along the Mersey Estuary. There are significant road and rail linkages connecting the area with the surrounding NCAs. This extensive transport infrastructure includes the M53, M57, M58 and M62 motorways, the West Coast Main Line railway and the Merseyrail local network. Liverpool city centre is a regional, national and international cultural and administrative centre. The ports at Seaforth (where a new post-Panamax terminal is under construction), Bootle, Garston, Birkenhead and Liverpool provide for significant international trade and cruise liners, as well as international and local passenger ferries connecting with Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man.

The Merseyside Conurbation today

The Merseyside Conurbation NCA is a predominantly built-up landscape on the east and west sides of the River Mersey, with approximately 81 per cent of land being classified as urban. The area is significantly influenced by the urban and suburban development that is focused around the city of Liverpool and its environs, together with the urban and industrial areas of Birkenhead to the north-east of the mid-Wirral sandstone ridge. The main settlements in the area are Liverpool, Birkenhead, Bootle, Kirkby, Maghull, Huyton, Bebington and Wallasey.

The Merseyside Conurbation NCA sits on a low-lying, gently rolling platform punctuated by low sandstone ridges. The lower estuary of the River Mersey cuts through the area, pinched between sandstone hills. The underlying sandstone geology forms part of an aquifer which supports groundwater abstractions. The dominant influence of urban development, however, overrides much of the underlying geology and landform.

Views can be expansive from elevated land such as the crests of Everton Park and on the Wirral from Oxton and Bidston Hill. There are also views from the open coast, estuary and the River Mersey, including aspects of the Liverpool and Birkenhead waterfronts.

The principal rivers are the Mersey and Alt and their tributary streams. The tidal River Mersey flows north-west through the area and enters the Irish Sea at Liverpool Bay. Its strong tides have created an estuary with deep channels, mudflats and sand banks. The Mersey Estuary comprises an unusual configuration with a narrow mouth and a wide, shallow basin. A large proportion of the estuary’s waterfront is contained by coastal defences, with vertical walls, docks and industrial premises. Sand dunes and a wide sandy foreshore are distinctive features along the open coastline. The River Alt rises in the urban area of Huyton, crossing the conurbation and flowing into the Irish Sea at Hightown. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal cuts across the conurbation, into Liverpool docks.

Woodland cover is significant in such a heavily urban area (5 per cent and predominantly broadleaved). Dibbinsdale Site of Special Scientific Interest and Local Nature Reserve supports the largest stand of ancient semi-natural woodland in Merseyside. Urban parks, cemeteries and suburban street plans provide trees and, in some cases, wooded habitats. The Mersey Forest covers much of the area, encouraging the establishment of new community woodland and other green space, recognising the important quality of life benefits these features provide.

There is a restricted rural hinterland with versatile, good-quality agricultural land. Small pockets of Grade 1 agricultural land can be found to the north, associated with the villages of Sefton and Lunt, between Maghull and Netherton. Clusters of Grade 2 and 3 land are found on the urban fringe to the east along the M57 to the north of Huyton and in Wirral along the M53 west of Bebington. The agricultural land provides supporting habitat for internationally important populations of overwintering birds.

The small areas of farmland are often arable or horticultural, although subject to the pressures of the urban fringe. Field boundaries are generally hedgerows and, in the farmland across north Merseyside, boundaries are sometimes marked by drainage ditches with grassy banks.

The Mersey Estuary, an area of transition from marine to freshwater habitats, supports marine, subtidal and maritime species. The estuary’s extensive mudflats/sand flats and areas of salt marsh are important feeding and roosting grounds for waders and wildfowl, and large areas are designated as SPA and Ramsar sites. At the mouth of the estuary and along the open coast, the Mersey Narrows and North Wirral Foreshore SPA and Ramsar site contains a range of wildlife habitats, including manmade lagoons generated during the development of Royal Seaforth Docks, which have since become an important, unique habitat. The wide coastal frontages found along the open coast, straddling the borders with the Wirral and Sefton NCA’s, form parts of the Dee Estuary and Sefton Coast SAC and Ribble and Alt Estuaries SPA and Ramsar site.

An extensive network of green infrastructure is interspersed throughout this largely urban area. Local Wildlife Sites, Local Nature Reserves, parks, canals, cemeteries, gardens, golf courses and allotments are all important refuges for wildlife, while providing places of relative tranquillity for people to enjoy. Private domestic gardens also represent a significant asset for the area. A number of conspicuous species have colonised the urban areas, with fox and peregrine falcon being among the most-publicised examples. The mosaic of built environment and open space provides opportunities for other urban specialist species, including house sparrow and starling.

There are parklands associated with country houses such as Croxteth and Bowring. The conurbation contains several Victorian public parks, including Sefton Park and Birkenhead Park. The latter was one of the first Victorian public parks, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and an influence on Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for Central Park in New York. Both these parks and St James Cemetery are now Grade 1 listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

There is a dense settlement pattern of housing and large-scale industry. This is primarily an urban landscape reflecting major industrial, commercial and residential expansion from the 18th century onwards. The built environment is characterised by a mix of red brick and sandstone within the city and a diverse range of modern materials in the outlying suburbs. Traditional building materials are timber frame.

The city of Liverpool is a diverse historic and cultural centre with a strong identity, many iconic buildings, including the two famous cathedrals, the Royal Liver Building and the Liverpool Pier Head, and various waterfront regeneration developments. The 19th- and early 20th-century architecture reflects the wealth of Liverpool at this time. The historic centre and docklands of Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City are a World Heritage Site.

The ring road marks the general extent of Victorian Liverpool. Outside the ring road, the majority of development is post-war housing with some areas of farmland, golf courses and parkland associated with country houses. Many of the city edge settlements function as commuter settlements for the immediate proximity of Liverpool and the wider Liverpool and Manchester region.

The high densities of population and busy transport network result in urban areas having low tranquillity, with the open spaces and canals offering areas of relative tranquillity locally. A sense of tranquillity may still be associated with the area’s significant parkland heritage. A sense of tranquillity, space and light is also provided by the coast and estuary, together with more local green spaces, Local Wildlife Sites and Local Nature Reserves.

There is a large proportion of industrial land use, with docks, warehouses and associated commercial land. These are interlinked by an extensive transport infrastructure. Motorways include the M53, M57, M58 and M62. The West Coast Main Line connects the area with London and major cities in the West Midlands and Scotland, while the Merseyrail local network is well used, with underground stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead. The ports provide transport of bulk goods in and out of the north-west, as well as international and local passenger ferries. The Mersey Estuary is also becoming an important site for offshore wind farms. Wirral, as part of the city region, has been designated as a Centre for Offshore Renewable Energy and is becoming a hub for business location. The area has seen new development with facilities and temporary storage space for offshore wind turbines. Crew transfer stations are also located along this frontage.

Recreation is supported by the area’s rights of way network and the Trans Pennine Trail. The large population has access to Local Nature Reserves and country parks, as well as more formal facilities such as golf courses. There are also public parks and green spaces. However, accessible green space is not equally distributed across the area, with some locations deficient in quality and quantity of accessible green space. Riverside access is provided by promenades such as at Otterspool and New Brighton, while part of the North Wirral Coastal Park falls within the NCA, providing birdwatching opportunities over the foreshore and access to nearby beaches. The NCA’s wide sandy frontage provides opportunities for recreation and is well used. Crosby Beach is home to the internationally acclaimed artist Antony Gormley’s sculpture and popular visitor attraction ‘Another Place’, while the beach also marks the southern starting point of the Sefton Coastal Path.

The landscape through time

The Merseyside Conurbation NCA is underlain by Triassic (248-205 million years old) red mudstones and sandstones. The Lower Triassic sandstones of the Sherwood Sandstone Group form low ridges at Wallasey and Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula and Crosby on the north side of the Mersey Estuary. Pebbles are scattered through much of the sequence and include the well-known Chester Pebble Bed.

The main deposit of Quaternary age is till, which formed in and beneath glaciers and ice sheets. During the last glacial advance some 20,000 years ago, ice invaded from the Irish Sea area and deposited till, sands and gravels over much of the Merseyside area. Also associated with the glacial advance are deposits of fine, wind-transported silt known as loess. Mud and sand accreting in the Mersey are supplied largely by long-shore drift with some river-borne material. The resulting sand dunes and salt marshes act as natural barriers against marine flooding.

The 12th to the 16th centuries saw the development of towns and villages in Merseyside. Liverpool was an agricultural village up until the 16th century. Its role remained that of a market town, although its maritime dimension grew, especially in the 17th century. By the later 17th century, there was a notable shift towards a maritime, mercantile economy.

The development of Liverpool was influenced by the physical characteristics of the Mersey shoreline. The construction of the Old Dock in 1715 in a natural tidal pool off the River Mersey prompted a massive expansion of docks along the shoreline. These were all built on reclaimed land, either extending out into the Mersey or into the pool.

In response to the Industrial Revolution in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands, the docks expanded rapidly, with increasing demand for Cheshire salt and Lancashire textiles, coal, pottery and metal goods. The port became a focus of trade with the Caribbean, North America, South America, Africa and the Far East. The ever-increasing volume of cross-Atlantic shipping and demand for berthing space led to the development of docks and associated warehouses.

In the 18th century, the expansion of trade demanded the rapid building of warehouses around the docks at the expense of housing. The working population tended to live in the cellars of the warehouses. It was not until the 19th century that there was any significant expansion in the housing stock. Industrial expansion during the late Victorian to Edwardian period led to the large-scale construction of workers’ housing in the form of grid-iron terracing.

Agriculture developed in this period to provide meat, dairy, arable and horticultural products for the urban populations. Milk was very important, the expansion of the transport system seeing the decline of urban cowhouses in the 19th century. A shant (local vernacular) was a rural agricultural dwelling designed for the use of migrant workers who mainly conducted seasonal labour in the north-west of England in the 19th century.

The development of extensive settlements on the east of the Wirral Peninsula commenced with the introduction of the steam ferry in the early 19th century. In 1886, the Mersey Railway Tunnel was opened, linking the Wirral and Liverpool. This led to further rapid growth. The formerly small communities of Wallasey, Birkenhead, Bebington and Bromborough expanded significantly and amalgamated into a single urbanised area. The mid 19th century saw the establishment of docks at Birkenhead and in the Wallasey Pool, and continuing development for a wide range of industry along the banks of the Mersey. The improved communications also allowed Liverpool merchants to buy up and develop large estates in Wirral. The steel and ship-building industry transformed Birkenhead into a major 19th-century industrial town with associated residential housing. Villages were constructed by wealthy industrialists, such as at Bromborough Pool and Port Sunlight, to provide homes for their factory workers.

Until the early years of the 20th century, Merseyside did not have its present wide fringe of suburban development. From the 1920s onwards, the combination of council houses built to house families displaced by slum clearance in Liverpool and Bootle, and speculative private building, led to rapid urban growth into the surrounding small towns and villages. In 1934 the Mersey Railway Tunnel was supplemented by a vehicle tunnel, the Queensway Tunnel. A third tunnel opened in 1971, the Kingsway Tunnel, connecting with the M53 motorway. These communication links contributed to the growth of commuting between Liverpool and Wirral.

Historically, field systems were more visible in the landscape, even as late as 1939. Liverpool was heavily bombed during the Second World War, and a large part of the city destroyed or severely damaged. This contributed to severe post-war housing shortages. The built-up area of Merseyside increased considerably with many new housing estates associated with post-war redevelopment, as well as slum clearance. In the north-east of Merseyside, the large-scale development of Kirkby is wholly a product of the period since 1952. In the 1960s a new and vibrant pop culture spawned in Merseyside, foremost of which was the role played by the Beatles.

This period of growth came to a sudden halt in the 1970s. Housing policy switched from the huge slum clearances towards the improvement of older houses. In the 1970s the ports, not able to adapt to the introduction of containerisation, lost much trade and, as a consequence, became redundant, leaving large areas of derelict land and many of the docks abandoned.

In the late 20th and early 21st century, the Merseyside conurbation experienced new growth through leisure and tourism developments. Some docks are still involved in shipping. The working docks have significantly increased the amount of freight and cargo landed. Those that closed are still culturally important, with some used for socialising, museums and art galleries such as Tate Liverpool, shopping and sports. In 1984, Liverpool hosted the country’s first International Garden Festival, regenerating a former household waste site on land adjacent to the River Mersey. The Maritime Mercantile City in Liverpool was awarded World Heritage Site status in 2004 and in 2008 Liverpool was nominated the European Capital of Culture. Many of the area’s parks have undergone regeneration and offer a wide range of facilities and opportunities for residents and visitors alike.